INDO-JAPAN TIES

• Amid increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region, India and Japan decided to intensify defence and maritime cooperation, but made little headway in wrapping up the much-anticipated civil nuclear deal.
• The two countries signed eight agreements in various fields after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe at the annual India-Japan Summit.

 HIGHLIGHTS:

• Japan announced a loan of $2 billion for the expansion of the Delhi Metro project. 
• Expansion of the bilateral currency swap arrangement from $15 billion to $50 billion.
• Japan extends full support to India in becoming a member of the four international export control regimes -- the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG), the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement.
• India had invited the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force for the next edition of the ‘Malabar’ maritime exercise conducted annually by Indian and US forces.
• New Delhi also lent its support to Tokyo in its ongoing tussle with Beijing over China’s controversial decision to set up an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea that requires its neighbours to give advance notice while overflying the territory.
• Japan also lowered non-tariff barriers to import of shrimps that will help Indian fishermen.

 NPT HURDLE:

• A section of Japanese policymakers wants India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
• India wants to have a deal with Japan on the basis of its existing strong anti-proliferation credentials
• Japan wants India to clarify its nuclear liability law that prevents suppliers from making themselves immune to compensation claims in the event of an accident. The two sides had held three rounds of talks before the 2011 Fukushima N-plant disaster

•  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first Japanese chief guest at the Republic Day parade and his visit is a demonstration of the positive ties that India and Japan have developed in the recent times. It is easy to agree with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Japan is at the heart of India's "Look-East Policy," which brought in four Asian leaders as chief guests at the Republic Day parade in the last five years. Japan will help with the expansion of the Delhi Metro, and of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor. Japanese companies will build roads; help with agriculture and forests, water supply and other infrastructure projects in the North-East. They will also help develop a new port in Chennai. India and Japan have much in common, including concerns at the developing geopolitical realities of the region. The elephant in the room is always the relationship with China. Both, India and Japan, have reason to be wary of China asserting itself as its economic might makes it more and more powerful. Indeed, there was a veiled reference to China's air defence identification zone in the joint statement issued after talks between the two Prime Ministers.